It was pointed out to me recently that life on the JET program is about constantly living in the future, counting down to upcoming events and ticking the days off until the next big adventure with glee. I have to admit, a lot of the time, this is completely true. Rather than living content in the present, I often find myself casting my mind ahead to the weekend, holiday plans, my next pay-check... So, here is my top ten list of things I'm most excited for as of today, in no particular order:
1) In Golden Week, my Mum and my stepdad Mark will be coming to Japan for a holiday/visit. I've been booking flights, accommodation, entertainment tickets etc for months now and with only a couple of weeks until they finally touch down, I am beyond excited! Trip highlights will include a Hanshin Tigers baseball game at Koshien stadium, a Kobe beef lunch, bringing them to school, taking a trip to Disneyland and the chance to get dressed up as maiko (Japanese geisha-in-training) and have our pictures taken.
2) Getting home to Aust and buying myself a super-comfy queen-sized bed! And an office-worthy coffee machine. Yum.
3) The weekend!
4) Teaching classes again next week after a 3-week hiatus due to closing ceremonies, school holidays, opening ceremonies etc.
5) The Tokushima AJET annual Touch Rugby Tournament in May. It's a good chance to catch up with JETs from all over Shikoku and indeed Japan, to play some sport and eat some BBQ food and generally just drink/socialise all weekend long.
6) Warm weather, hopefully not too far away!
7) An upcoming trip to Taipei that I have planned with the boy. Holidays FTW.
8) The Tokushima Black Tie Ball. Last year my friend Lisa and I organised this gala event and though I've passed the reins off to a fellow JET this year, I'm still pretty excited to don a fancy frock and swan around a classy hotel with my friends.
9) The Chinese F1 on this Sunday!
10) An early payday next Friday. Getting paid monthly sucks yo!
Friday, 12 April 2013
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Sumo
After missing out in 2012, heading to Osaka to watch the Sumo Grand Tournament was high on my To Do List this year. Sumo only happens 6 times a year and tickets for our closest tourney went on sale in January so a bunch of us jumped on the opening day sales opportunity to make a weekend of it.
Being the end of the school year, most of us had enkai (work drinking/dinner party) plans on the Friday night, but we each managed to straggle across to Osaka by bus on the Saturday. We met up at the Bodymaker Colosseum at 3pm though and weaved through the crowds (who were there hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite Sumo stars) to enter the venue. We were kindly escorted up to our seats by a handsome young usher and sat down to a pretty awesome view (especially for the $35AUD ticket price!).
The Sumo matches themselves were over fairly quickly, each battle lasting only mere minutes. But the spectacle of the show and the smashing falls some of the guys took made it worth every second. Some of the wrestlers were huge and surprisingly, many of them were also foreign. Apparently, competitors must square up with the others in their division at least once during the course of the tournament. Since we visited on Day 13, we were able to distinguish the pecking order - with a mammoth guy called Hakuho sitting undefeated at 13/0. Between matches, some Sumo wrestlers performed in rather intimidating and highly stylized ceremonies - it was a sight to behold!
Unfortunately, the day was over far too quickly, with the lights raised and crowds spilling out of the colosseum by 6.30pm. I left feeling rather buzzed (thanks to the cheap beers available from the souvenir kiosks dotted around the dome) and ruing the fact that we'd decided to get there so late in the day. Oh well, Sumo in Japan? Cross it off the list!
Being the end of the school year, most of us had enkai (work drinking/dinner party) plans on the Friday night, but we each managed to straggle across to Osaka by bus on the Saturday. We met up at the Bodymaker Colosseum at 3pm though and weaved through the crowds (who were there hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite Sumo stars) to enter the venue. We were kindly escorted up to our seats by a handsome young usher and sat down to a pretty awesome view (especially for the $35AUD ticket price!).
The Sumo matches themselves were over fairly quickly, each battle lasting only mere minutes. But the spectacle of the show and the smashing falls some of the guys took made it worth every second. Some of the wrestlers were huge and surprisingly, many of them were also foreign. Apparently, competitors must square up with the others in their division at least once during the course of the tournament. Since we visited on Day 13, we were able to distinguish the pecking order - with a mammoth guy called Hakuho sitting undefeated at 13/0. Between matches, some Sumo wrestlers performed in rather intimidating and highly stylized ceremonies - it was a sight to behold!
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
My Beautiful School
Last summer holidays my school began its earthquake-proofing renovation process. During this time the contents of the entire school were moved to the gym and a temporary building set-up onsite nearby. And despite operating out of cramped quarters, for the 6 months that it took to complete the revamp it was business as usual at Awa JHS. Of course when the workmen had finally finished reconstructions and we were all able to move back into the main school building we found it was well worth the awkward wait. I proudly introduce to you, the new Awa Junior High School...
The hallways have been re-floored and the walls re-plastered.
This is where the children are expected to wash up before and after lunch.
The new bathrooms are a stark improvement.
And to my delight feature more than a dozen brand-new seat-heated Western-style toilets!
Student shoe "lockers".
Rock garden at the bottom of the stairwell.
New gardens and exteriors.
New spiral external evacuation staircases.
A new elevator!
A large common wash area.
And for some reason, a fully equipped shower!
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Defining Identity
At home in Australia, I like to think of myself as a strong and independent woman. In the culture that I know, I know who I am. But living overseas in a foreign culture kind of throws your self-identity out of whack a little. Things I thought I knew about myself, I've seen come undone. Labels that I never thought would apply to me, suddenly apply. My emotional responses, actions and ways of approaching things have changed and often surprise me. Defining your self-identity - and accepting it - can be difficult when you're so far out of your comfort zone that you barely remember what 'just being yourself' feels like...
In Japan I Am
(or have been)
A teacher, a student, an optimist, a pessimist, a cynic and a friend.
A lover, a fighter and an alien outsider.
Illiterate, short-tempered, bold and brash.
Illiterate, short-tempered, bold and brash.
Funny, endearing, confused and depressed.
Shy, insecure and alone.
Shy, insecure and alone.
A role model, a leader, an organiser and a host.
A colleague or a walking, talking dictionary.
A colleague or a walking, talking dictionary.
An assistant, a confidante and a trailblazer.
Different.
Different.
Annoying, enthralling and entertaining.
An expat, an Aussie and a drunk.
An expat, an Aussie and a drunk.
Emotional, adventurous, curious and bored.
An exotic animal, a party animal, bewildered.
An exotic animal, a party animal, bewildered.
Old, young, worried, carefree and part of a minority.
Envious, isolated, excited and full of hatred.
Mocked, stared at and discriminated against.
Mocked, stared at and discriminated against.
Joyous, sad, culture-shocked and broke.
Bereft and unable to communicate.
A member of the community, a tourist, a wannabe..?
Monday, 4 March 2013
After-JET Conference 2013 (a.k.a Let's Party in Tokyo and Yokohama!)
Quite some time before I was ready to officially decline the offer from my Board of Education to re-contract, I heard about the 2013 After-JET Conference in Yokohama. Tempting though it was to travel to north for the three-day conference, I still hadn't had "the talk" with my supervisor or handed in my papers and so I let the deadline for registration slip quietly by. A week later however and I had changed my mind, mostly due to the persuasive powers of my friend Natasha - whose excitement at spending the weekend in Tokyo followed by the conference nights in Yokohama was infectious. And so, a little late in the game and after finding out that I could take the time off work using 'special leave', I decided to email the organisers and have my name added to the list.
Given her enthusiasm for the trip, Natasha did most of the planning. This saw us travelling to Kobe by bus on Saturday 23rd March and catching a Skymark flight to Tokyo's Haneda Airport. On Saturday and Sunday nights we stayed at the APA Hotel Nishiazabu (near Roppongi!) before making our way to Yokohama on Monday morning to check into the Mielparque Hotel (easily the fanciest I've stayed at in Japan so far) for the next two nights. On Wednesday after the conference, we legged it back to Haneda and transitted in Kobe before finally making it home late that night. Having booked our flights quite some time in advance, we were able to get return flights for around 20,000yen (or 200AUD) each. Bus tickets ran to about 50AUD a head. And by sharing a room (rather squishy at APA, but huge at Mielparque) we dropped less than 150AUD p/p on accommodation for the 4 nights. Winning.
Have a look at what we got up to!
Saturday 23 Feb: Travelling to Tokyo and clubbing in Roppongi.
Making sure we left ourselves enough time to get to the airport in Kobe, I arranged to meet Natasha at her place at 8am on Saturday morning. Having not gone to bed until about 4am, this was far too early for me though we made it without incident to her local highway bus stop and arrived at Kobe Airport with enough time to grab a restaurant lunch (club sandwiches, yum) before jetting off for Tokyo.
Our flight landed in Haneda 15minutes after schedule (rather unheard of in Japanese travel actually) and after collecting our stuff we moseyed on through to the monorail to make our way towards Roppongi. Not realising it would be so late when we got into town, we were a bit under the pump time-wise to drop our stuff off, make it to Harajuku for a crepe and to meet James (an ex-Tokushima ALT and Natasha's friend). Less than hour later though we found ourselves doing just that - wolfing down a crepe (this time I tried a blueberry and cream cheese one) and browsing H&M waiting for James to arrive. The guys waited for me to finish my shopping and then we trained into Shinjuku to eat at Lock Up Restaurant - a hilarious theme izakaya (Japanese-style tapas pub restaurant) where bad guys, mental patients and cops run around during the "show" generally just tormenting patrons in a good-natured way. Getting handcuffed and led downstairs to our table by a hot young Japanese waitress in a cop outfit was definitely the highlight of my dinner...
After dinner, we'd arranged to meet my friend (by way of Myanmar holiday) Yuki for a taste of clubbing in Roppongi. Yuki took us first to a little pre-game bar downstairs before we all headed over to Vanity Nightclub. Despite being able to get in free and fast for being foreign girls, we decided to wait with Yuki in a move that saw us spend over an hour in the queue! Once inside though, the club did not disappoint. Featuring a DJ from LA, crazy hot and weirdly dressed promo guys and girls, ivy covering the roof, stuffed fluffy exotic animals tangled everywhere and the brightest white surfaces, Vanity ranks as one of the top 5 clubs in the world that I've ever been to. Unfortunately, they seemed to have a STRICT no photographs policy and every time we dared to whip the camera out we were quickly chastised for doing so. Despite agreeing to an early night, Natasha and I didn't make it back to the hotel until around 6am - deciding to accept the fact that Sunday sightseeing wouldn't begin until at least midday now.
Sunday 24 Feb: Odaiba and Yakiniku.
Dragging ourselves out of bed in the late morning, Natasha and I decided to bypass Kamakura (as was the plan) and head to Odaiba instead to check out a few of the more touristy sights. We went to the Future Museum (where my hangover hit me full force) and then walked across to see the Gundam (giant robot) before hunting down Lady Liberty for a slightly bizarre experience. Hangover aside, Odaiba was great and I'd say a must-see for tourists, but the wind was incredible there and truthfully, I wouldn't EVER go back in winter time again.
Running late getting back to town after Odaiba (and getting lost in the maze that is Shinjuku Station) we met up with my Aussie mate Ricky for some good old fashioned BBQed meat. Unable to find the original place we were looking for we accidentally stumbled into an offal yakiniku place - only realising our mistake once we'd sat down and requested the advertised English menus. A quick decision was made to leave and we gathered our things to head upstairs to the cheapest izakaya-style yakiniku I've ever seen! The bill for the three of us to eat our fill and have a beer each was roughly 4000yen total - that's 40 bucks Australian! So cheap! Falling asleep at dinner though from a long day-night-day on the town, Natasha and I decided to call it an early one and we headed back to the hotel to climb into bed well before midnight.
Monday 25 Feb: After-JET Conference Day 1, Yokohama.
On Monday morning we dressed in our business attire finest, packed our suitcases and made our way via subway/train to Yokohama (Japan's second largest city) to check into the Mielparque Hotel before heading to the first day of the 2013 After-JET Conference. We arrived at the rather swanky hotel a little to early to check into our room, but the hotel receptionists happily took our bags into storage leaving us to travel the 2 subway stops to Motomirai Station and the Pacifico Convention Centre.
The first day of lectures was rather interesting. We listened to experts in the field discuss issues like reverse culture shock, perfecting your CV and nailing key interview techniques. We also found time to duck across to the Cosmoworld fairground and take a quick ride on a rollercoaster that dips through a shallow pool and underground before completing a circuit - GOOD TIMES!
That night we decided to check out Yokohama Chinatown (Japan's biggest) and got railed into a 2000yen tabehodai deal (all you can eat for $20). We ate like gluttons - ordering multiple serves of crispy fried chicken wings, Peking duck pancakes, beef stirfry, chicken and cashew nuts, egg fried rice, soy sauce fried rice, gyoza, sweet and sour pork etc. The food was amazing, so much richer than typical Japanese fare and we left the place sooooooooooo full we could hardly walk! Wandering around afterwards for a cheap bar to linger in over a few drinks proved fruitless though and in the cold of the night we happened upon a karaoke joint offering one-hour nomihodai (all you can drink) plus singing for a mere 1000yen each. Being just about the cheapest karaoke place I'd ever seen (and on par with just one drink at every other venue we'd passed that night) we decided on karaoke, paying for one hour at first. Naturally, one turned into two and at around midnight we danced back to the hotel to fall asleep to a bed movie.
Tuesday 26 Feb: Monday Rebooted.
A full day of lectures on a mild hangover was less than pleasant and truthfully it was on this day that I realised the conference was essentially a giant job fair offering advice on proposed career paths, rather than the practical moving home advice I'd hoped to be receiving. As someone who (kinda) knows what they are doing after JET, I was a little disappointed especially as I was hoping to find answers to my questions, such as: How does the superannuation refund work? How do we cancel our utility contracts (phone, internet etc)? Who do we talk to about visa or tax issues? How do we go about getting documentation for our time here - income statements, tax paid and the like? What does the typical exiting-Japan timeline look like? etc etc.
Anyway, the hours passed quickly enough and ducking out early to swill a Heineken at Yokohama's Hard Rock Cafe made the day worthwhile. We left the cafe after posing for a few pics, wandered down the beautifully lit carnival street to meet up with some of the Kagawa JETs who'd also made the trip and essentially revisited our itinerary from the night before - Chinese food tabehodai (with a nomihodai thrown into this meal too, for good measure) followed by a 2-hour stint at cheap karaoke. The night ended in a drunken blur of singing through the streets back to the hotel and rewatching The Little Mermaid on the laptop before calling it a day.
Wednesday 27 Feb: Time to be Tourists.
On Wednesday I woke up with the hangover from hell, dragged my sorry ass through the shower and JUST fronted on time to the Pacifico for the third and final day of the conference. Proceedings for the this last day were segregated according to country of origin and so in a series of panel discussions, information sessions and Embassy talks I spent most of my morning listening to the questions and answers pertaining to the Australian experience. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of it particularly useful and was glad when everything wrapped up at midday so that we could head out for some lunch. Simon, Natasha, Peter and I ended up in an American burger joint in Motomirai - where Natasha and I shared orders of tacos and hamburgers. It was pretty amazing and just what my upset stomach needed!
After lunch Natasha and I headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and find something to do for the afternoon, before heading back to Tokushima at 6pm. We decided on a sento visit (public bath-house) and strolled along the waterfront back into Motomirai to check it out. On the way we passed the giant Red Brick Warehouses and the Cup Ramen Museum. Unfortunately, when we got to the sento we found that it was claaaaaaaaassy and expensive and given that we only had roughly an hour to waste, we decided to double back to the ramen museum and try our hand at making our own cup noodles! As much as I was looking forward to a nice, long relaxing bath I have to admit to being pretty excited to fit this in and get my noodle on!
It cost us 500yen to get into the Cup Ramen Museum, plus an additional 300yen to make our own cup noodles. We headed upstairs through the rather futuristic-looking museum and into the cooking hall, where we stuck our 300yen into a vending machine that dispensed us a thick plasticky plain styrofoam noodle cup. At the head of the queue we were treated to some English instructions (write the date so you know when the noodles expire, don't draw above or below the red lines etc) and then shown to a table to start colouring/decorating our cups. Once we were done with the design work we joined the next queue - to get our noodles! Behind the counter there were dozens of staff waiting to help you fill your cup and each person got to choose the soup flavour base and four additional ingredients to go inside. I chose chilli tomato flavour and added 'love' hearts, beef cubes, corn and parsley to mine before it was put into a hot press to be sealed shut. The last steps included running the cup through a plastic wrapping machine and then finally into an airbag for safe couriering. Fun times! A short sojourn through the museum for pictures and a sneaky bowl of Chinese ramen later and we were done!
Cup noodles in the bag (literally) just left us with travelling back to Haneda Airport, which was easy enough from Yokohama Station. Though we slightly misjudged our timing and ended up checking into our flight quite on the wire! All's well that ends well though and after a short walk, a subway, a train, a flight, a bus and a car-ride later we arrived home at 10pm - safe, sound, thoroughly exhausted and staring down the barrel of an extended workday on Thursday!
Given her enthusiasm for the trip, Natasha did most of the planning. This saw us travelling to Kobe by bus on Saturday 23rd March and catching a Skymark flight to Tokyo's Haneda Airport. On Saturday and Sunday nights we stayed at the APA Hotel Nishiazabu (near Roppongi!) before making our way to Yokohama on Monday morning to check into the Mielparque Hotel (easily the fanciest I've stayed at in Japan so far) for the next two nights. On Wednesday after the conference, we legged it back to Haneda and transitted in Kobe before finally making it home late that night. Having booked our flights quite some time in advance, we were able to get return flights for around 20,000yen (or 200AUD) each. Bus tickets ran to about 50AUD a head. And by sharing a room (rather squishy at APA, but huge at Mielparque) we dropped less than 150AUD p/p on accommodation for the 4 nights. Winning.
Have a look at what we got up to!
Saturday 23 Feb: Travelling to Tokyo and clubbing in Roppongi.
Making sure we left ourselves enough time to get to the airport in Kobe, I arranged to meet Natasha at her place at 8am on Saturday morning. Having not gone to bed until about 4am, this was far too early for me though we made it without incident to her local highway bus stop and arrived at Kobe Airport with enough time to grab a restaurant lunch (club sandwiches, yum) before jetting off for Tokyo.
Our flight landed in Haneda 15minutes after schedule (rather unheard of in Japanese travel actually) and after collecting our stuff we moseyed on through to the monorail to make our way towards Roppongi. Not realising it would be so late when we got into town, we were a bit under the pump time-wise to drop our stuff off, make it to Harajuku for a crepe and to meet James (an ex-Tokushima ALT and Natasha's friend). Less than hour later though we found ourselves doing just that - wolfing down a crepe (this time I tried a blueberry and cream cheese one) and browsing H&M waiting for James to arrive. The guys waited for me to finish my shopping and then we trained into Shinjuku to eat at Lock Up Restaurant - a hilarious theme izakaya (Japanese-style tapas pub restaurant) where bad guys, mental patients and cops run around during the "show" generally just tormenting patrons in a good-natured way. Getting handcuffed and led downstairs to our table by a hot young Japanese waitress in a cop outfit was definitely the highlight of my dinner...
Dinner with Natasha and James @ Lock Up, Shinjuku.
Picture courtesy of Natasha H.
Shinjuku!
Picture courtesy of Natasha H.
After dinner, we'd arranged to meet my friend (by way of Myanmar holiday) Yuki for a taste of clubbing in Roppongi. Yuki took us first to a little pre-game bar downstairs before we all headed over to Vanity Nightclub. Despite being able to get in free and fast for being foreign girls, we decided to wait with Yuki in a move that saw us spend over an hour in the queue! Once inside though, the club did not disappoint. Featuring a DJ from LA, crazy hot and weirdly dressed promo guys and girls, ivy covering the roof, stuffed fluffy exotic animals tangled everywhere and the brightest white surfaces, Vanity ranks as one of the top 5 clubs in the world that I've ever been to. Unfortunately, they seemed to have a STRICT no photographs policy and every time we dared to whip the camera out we were quickly chastised for doing so. Despite agreeing to an early night, Natasha and I didn't make it back to the hotel until around 6am - deciding to accept the fact that Sunday sightseeing wouldn't begin until at least midday now.
Sunday 24 Feb: Odaiba and Yakiniku.
Dragging ourselves out of bed in the late morning, Natasha and I decided to bypass Kamakura (as was the plan) and head to Odaiba instead to check out a few of the more touristy sights. We went to the Future Museum (where my hangover hit me full force) and then walked across to see the Gundam (giant robot) before hunting down Lady Liberty for a slightly bizarre experience. Hangover aside, Odaiba was great and I'd say a must-see for tourists, but the wind was incredible there and truthfully, I wouldn't EVER go back in winter time again.
Gundam-style in Odaiba!
Standing in front of Little Lady Liberty.
Running late getting back to town after Odaiba (and getting lost in the maze that is Shinjuku Station) we met up with my Aussie mate Ricky for some good old fashioned BBQed meat. Unable to find the original place we were looking for we accidentally stumbled into an offal yakiniku place - only realising our mistake once we'd sat down and requested the advertised English menus. A quick decision was made to leave and we gathered our things to head upstairs to the cheapest izakaya-style yakiniku I've ever seen! The bill for the three of us to eat our fill and have a beer each was roughly 4000yen total - that's 40 bucks Australian! So cheap! Falling asleep at dinner though from a long day-night-day on the town, Natasha and I decided to call it an early one and we headed back to the hotel to climb into bed well before midnight.
Monday 25 Feb: After-JET Conference Day 1, Yokohama.
On Monday morning we dressed in our business attire finest, packed our suitcases and made our way via subway/train to Yokohama (Japan's second largest city) to check into the Mielparque Hotel before heading to the first day of the 2013 After-JET Conference. We arrived at the rather swanky hotel a little to early to check into our room, but the hotel receptionists happily took our bags into storage leaving us to travel the 2 subway stops to Motomirai Station and the Pacifico Convention Centre.
The first day of lectures was rather interesting. We listened to experts in the field discuss issues like reverse culture shock, perfecting your CV and nailing key interview techniques. We also found time to duck across to the Cosmoworld fairground and take a quick ride on a rollercoaster that dips through a shallow pool and underground before completing a circuit - GOOD TIMES!
CosmoWorld, Yokohama.
The rollercoaster going through a pond!
Picture courtesy of Natasha H.
That night we decided to check out Yokohama Chinatown (Japan's biggest) and got railed into a 2000yen tabehodai deal (all you can eat for $20). We ate like gluttons - ordering multiple serves of crispy fried chicken wings, Peking duck pancakes, beef stirfry, chicken and cashew nuts, egg fried rice, soy sauce fried rice, gyoza, sweet and sour pork etc. The food was amazing, so much richer than typical Japanese fare and we left the place sooooooooooo full we could hardly walk! Wandering around afterwards for a cheap bar to linger in over a few drinks proved fruitless though and in the cold of the night we happened upon a karaoke joint offering one-hour nomihodai (all you can drink) plus singing for a mere 1000yen each. Being just about the cheapest karaoke place I'd ever seen (and on par with just one drink at every other venue we'd passed that night) we decided on karaoke, paying for one hour at first. Naturally, one turned into two and at around midnight we danced back to the hotel to fall asleep to a bed movie.
Natasha and our tabehodai Chinese dinner!
Tuesday 26 Feb: Monday Rebooted.
A full day of lectures on a mild hangover was less than pleasant and truthfully it was on this day that I realised the conference was essentially a giant job fair offering advice on proposed career paths, rather than the practical moving home advice I'd hoped to be receiving. As someone who (kinda) knows what they are doing after JET, I was a little disappointed especially as I was hoping to find answers to my questions, such as: How does the superannuation refund work? How do we cancel our utility contracts (phone, internet etc)? Who do we talk to about visa or tax issues? How do we go about getting documentation for our time here - income statements, tax paid and the like? What does the typical exiting-Japan timeline look like? etc etc.
Anyway, the hours passed quickly enough and ducking out early to swill a Heineken at Yokohama's Hard Rock Cafe made the day worthwhile. We left the cafe after posing for a few pics, wandered down the beautifully lit carnival street to meet up with some of the Kagawa JETs who'd also made the trip and essentially revisited our itinerary from the night before - Chinese food tabehodai (with a nomihodai thrown into this meal too, for good measure) followed by a 2-hour stint at cheap karaoke. The night ended in a drunken blur of singing through the streets back to the hotel and rewatching The Little Mermaid on the laptop before calling it a day.
Wednesday 27 Feb: Time to be Tourists.
On Wednesday I woke up with the hangover from hell, dragged my sorry ass through the shower and JUST fronted on time to the Pacifico for the third and final day of the conference. Proceedings for the this last day were segregated according to country of origin and so in a series of panel discussions, information sessions and Embassy talks I spent most of my morning listening to the questions and answers pertaining to the Australian experience. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of it particularly useful and was glad when everything wrapped up at midday so that we could head out for some lunch. Simon, Natasha, Peter and I ended up in an American burger joint in Motomirai - where Natasha and I shared orders of tacos and hamburgers. It was pretty amazing and just what my upset stomach needed!
After lunch Natasha and I headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and find something to do for the afternoon, before heading back to Tokushima at 6pm. We decided on a sento visit (public bath-house) and strolled along the waterfront back into Motomirai to check it out. On the way we passed the giant Red Brick Warehouses and the Cup Ramen Museum. Unfortunately, when we got to the sento we found that it was claaaaaaaaassy and expensive and given that we only had roughly an hour to waste, we decided to double back to the ramen museum and try our hand at making our own cup noodles! As much as I was looking forward to a nice, long relaxing bath I have to admit to being pretty excited to fit this in and get my noodle on!
Red Brick Warehouses.
Red Brick Warehouse history lesson.
Cup Noodle Museum in Yokohama.
It cost us 500yen to get into the Cup Ramen Museum, plus an additional 300yen to make our own cup noodles. We headed upstairs through the rather futuristic-looking museum and into the cooking hall, where we stuck our 300yen into a vending machine that dispensed us a thick plasticky plain styrofoam noodle cup. At the head of the queue we were treated to some English instructions (write the date so you know when the noodles expire, don't draw above or below the red lines etc) and then shown to a table to start colouring/decorating our cups. Once we were done with the design work we joined the next queue - to get our noodles! Behind the counter there were dozens of staff waiting to help you fill your cup and each person got to choose the soup flavour base and four additional ingredients to go inside. I chose chilli tomato flavour and added 'love' hearts, beef cubes, corn and parsley to mine before it was put into a hot press to be sealed shut. The last steps included running the cup through a plastic wrapping machine and then finally into an airbag for safe couriering. Fun times! A short sojourn through the museum for pictures and a sneaky bowl of Chinese ramen later and we were done!
Noodle cup vending machine.
My decorated cup noodle!
Ingredients time!
Cup noodles in the bag (literally) just left us with travelling back to Haneda Airport, which was easy enough from Yokohama Station. Though we slightly misjudged our timing and ended up checking into our flight quite on the wire! All's well that ends well though and after a short walk, a subway, a train, a flight, a bus and a car-ride later we arrived home at 10pm - safe, sound, thoroughly exhausted and staring down the barrel of an extended workday on Thursday!
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Naked Man Festival
On Saturday 16th February my friends and I decided to visit Okayama for the annual Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Man Festival). Every year, thousands of people flock to Saidai-ji Temple as the city hosts this night-time competition where, essentially, in the middle of winter hundreds of men swap their clothes for fundoshi (loincloths) and tabi (shoe socks) and jostle against each other in a giant naked moshpit trying to be the first to find and run away with one of 48 "good-luck" shingi (incense stick)... Needless to say, it's one event in Japan that I just couldn't pass up attending!
Okayama is located on the south-eastern mainland of Japan (the largest island, Honshu) and from Tokushima we decided to drive there by zipping through Kagawa Prefecture and then crossing the Seto Bridge. The drive is pleasantly short - we left my place at about 1pm on Saturday and were checking into our hotel (Hotel Repose) by 3.30pm. Liz, Danielle, Todd and I spent some time chilling out in our hotel room waiting for our friends in the other car to arrive and after some confusion with their check-in (Colin accidentally booked a hotel room at The Repose in Morrocco instead...) we eventually met up with them for some pre-drinks on the way to Okayama Station.
With all three of the boys (Colin, Todd and Luke) registering to participate in the event and the Okayama AJET bus responsible for ferrying them to the site departing an hour earlier than the girls' spectator bus at 7pm, we decided to split the group and go our separate ways for dinner. Us girls ended up in an Italian restaurant, where we proceeded to both eat and drink waaaaaaay too much, in an attempt both to pre-game AND line our stomachs before such a big night out. The food was cheap, delicious and so worth it though. Stopping at a conbini (convenience store) on the way to the bus pick-up point, we stocked up on our handbag-whiskey supply and last minute essentials before climbing aboard and riding the 30 minutes out to the temple.
We were quite anxious to meet up with our guys when we arrived at the festival precinct and after a few frantic phone calls to figure out where their changing tent was, we found ourselves with front row viewing for the lines of men running by, arms linked and yelling "wasshoi, wasshoi" in an effort to keep warm. Much to our amusement many of them wanted to shake our hand or give us high-fives and we took the opportunity to point, giggle and pose for photos. Finally, we spotted our guys running by and pulled them aside for a once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunity. To see them bare-arsed, shivering in nothing but loincloths, on a cold winter's night is not something I'm likely to forget any time soon!
Once they'd left us to continue their circuits and enter the temple grounds, us girls made our way to the ticketed area to find some of our other friends and hustle for a prime-viewing position. As the 10pm shingi-drop approached more and more men packed into the temple. Literally hundreds of naked men were crowded together on the temple's stone platform and soon the crowd began to surge from one direction to the other. Those on the edges near the stone steps caught the brunt of this swaying and often groups of up to 30 men at a time would topple backwards down the stairs into a pile on top of each other. Admittedly it was rather stressful to watch, with each of us yelling at one time or another "be careful, naked men!" and flinching in empathy. Uniformed police were also on-hand by the platform to pull out injured participants should the need arise. I think we saw 3 such 'rescue attempts', each time the crowd erupting into a thunderous applause as it was announced that no real harm had come to the man in question. We staved off the cold with our whiskey/cola mixes, took countless pictures/videos and waited for the lights to dim and the action to truly begin at 10pm!
Sure enough, at 10pm an announcement came over the PA system and the lights went down. The eight festival officials began throwing their shingi into the crowd, which was lit up intermittently by thousands of spectators' camera flashes going off one after the other. We tried in vain to search out our boys - wondering aloud where they had ended up, praying that they were safe and hoping that they'd lay their hands on a magical incense stick! The chaos lasted a mere 10-15 minutes as teams of men working together located the good luck shingi and hustled them out of the temple grounds to safety. Finally I was able to spot Colin (he looked like a glowing white, bearded Jesus amongst the crowd) and beside him, Austin. Flooded with relief that at least two of them were ok, we relaxed a little and decided to make our way back to the original meet up point to rendezvous.
Unfortunately, by the time we met up with them they were already fully clothed and clutching plastic bags harbouring their dirty fundoshi. We relayed stories about the event from each of our perspectives and took a few celebratory pictures before making a start back towards the bus stop to hitch the ride back into town. None of them had managed to collect a shingi but from the looks on their faces, it barely mattered. How proud we were anyway!
Getting back to Okayama Station the group decided to head to Pinball Bar and enjoy a few post-event bevvies. We met up with some of the Kagawa JETs who'd also come across to participate and spent the night making new friends, catching up with old ones and just generally having a good time in a town that wasn't our own. I ended up staying until lights up and made it back to the hotel at around 4.30am to crawl, quite drunkenly, under the blankets on my futon at Hotel Repose.
Waking up at 9.30am in prep for an 11am check-out wasn't the most pleasant of experiences, but knowing that I didn't have to do any of the driving that day made me feel infinitely better! Each of us girls took it in turns to shower and change, eventually meeting up with the rest of the gang downstairs in the lobby to decide on our next move (which ended up being a visit to a cool little Mexican joint called Freedom Tacos for some much needed hangover food). I scarfed down a large taco rice order - which was the absolute bomb! - and then slept in the car for most of the way home, arriving safely at my door by around 3pm.
All in all, our journey to Naked Man Festival was a complete success. It's pretty close to being one of the craziest things I've experienced in my time in Japan and ranks up there as one of the best weekends I've had for a long time. The company was amazing, the food was sublime, the drinking was fun and the naked men... well, there were lots of them, very naked. I'd call that a win in any language ;)
Okayama is located on the south-eastern mainland of Japan (the largest island, Honshu) and from Tokushima we decided to drive there by zipping through Kagawa Prefecture and then crossing the Seto Bridge. The drive is pleasantly short - we left my place at about 1pm on Saturday and were checking into our hotel (Hotel Repose) by 3.30pm. Liz, Danielle, Todd and I spent some time chilling out in our hotel room waiting for our friends in the other car to arrive and after some confusion with their check-in (Colin accidentally booked a hotel room at The Repose in Morrocco instead...) we eventually met up with them for some pre-drinks on the way to Okayama Station.
With all three of the boys (Colin, Todd and Luke) registering to participate in the event and the Okayama AJET bus responsible for ferrying them to the site departing an hour earlier than the girls' spectator bus at 7pm, we decided to split the group and go our separate ways for dinner. Us girls ended up in an Italian restaurant, where we proceeded to both eat and drink waaaaaaay too much, in an attempt both to pre-game AND line our stomachs before such a big night out. The food was cheap, delicious and so worth it though. Stopping at a conbini (convenience store) on the way to the bus pick-up point, we stocked up on our handbag-whiskey supply and last minute essentials before climbing aboard and riding the 30 minutes out to the temple.
Pre-event girls dinner <3 From L-R: Maiko, me, Liz, Natasha and Danielle.
Natasha and I, excited on the bus out to Saidai-ji Temple!
We were quite anxious to meet up with our guys when we arrived at the festival precinct and after a few frantic phone calls to figure out where their changing tent was, we found ourselves with front row viewing for the lines of men running by, arms linked and yelling "wasshoi, wasshoi" in an effort to keep warm. Much to our amusement many of them wanted to shake our hand or give us high-fives and we took the opportunity to point, giggle and pose for photos. Finally, we spotted our guys running by and pulled them aside for a once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunity. To see them bare-arsed, shivering in nothing but loincloths, on a cold winter's night is not something I'm likely to forget any time soon!
Our Tokushima boys..
Randomly running into and posing with the naked Kagawa boys :)
Random lines of naked Japanese men...
Once they'd left us to continue their circuits and enter the temple grounds, us girls made our way to the ticketed area to find some of our other friends and hustle for a prime-viewing position. As the 10pm shingi-drop approached more and more men packed into the temple. Literally hundreds of naked men were crowded together on the temple's stone platform and soon the crowd began to surge from one direction to the other. Those on the edges near the stone steps caught the brunt of this swaying and often groups of up to 30 men at a time would topple backwards down the stairs into a pile on top of each other. Admittedly it was rather stressful to watch, with each of us yelling at one time or another "be careful, naked men!" and flinching in empathy. Uniformed police were also on-hand by the platform to pull out injured participants should the need arise. I think we saw 3 such 'rescue attempts', each time the crowd erupting into a thunderous applause as it was announced that no real harm had come to the man in question. We staved off the cold with our whiskey/cola mixes, took countless pictures/videos and waited for the lights to dim and the action to truly begin at 10pm!
Sure enough, at 10pm an announcement came over the PA system and the lights went down. The eight festival officials began throwing their shingi into the crowd, which was lit up intermittently by thousands of spectators' camera flashes going off one after the other. We tried in vain to search out our boys - wondering aloud where they had ended up, praying that they were safe and hoping that they'd lay their hands on a magical incense stick! The chaos lasted a mere 10-15 minutes as teams of men working together located the good luck shingi and hustled them out of the temple grounds to safety. Finally I was able to spot Colin (he looked like a glowing white, bearded Jesus amongst the crowd) and beside him, Austin. Flooded with relief that at least two of them were ok, we relaxed a little and decided to make our way back to the original meet up point to rendezvous.
Naked Man participants crowding onto the temple platform.
Unfortunately, by the time we met up with them they were already fully clothed and clutching plastic bags harbouring their dirty fundoshi. We relayed stories about the event from each of our perspectives and took a few celebratory pictures before making a start back towards the bus stop to hitch the ride back into town. None of them had managed to collect a shingi but from the looks on their faces, it barely mattered. How proud we were anyway!
Getting back to Okayama Station the group decided to head to Pinball Bar and enjoy a few post-event bevvies. We met up with some of the Kagawa JETs who'd also come across to participate and spent the night making new friends, catching up with old ones and just generally having a good time in a town that wasn't our own. I ended up staying until lights up and made it back to the hotel at around 4.30am to crawl, quite drunkenly, under the blankets on my futon at Hotel Repose.
Waking up at 9.30am in prep for an 11am check-out wasn't the most pleasant of experiences, but knowing that I didn't have to do any of the driving that day made me feel infinitely better! Each of us girls took it in turns to shower and change, eventually meeting up with the rest of the gang downstairs in the lobby to decide on our next move (which ended up being a visit to a cool little Mexican joint called Freedom Tacos for some much needed hangover food). I scarfed down a large taco rice order - which was the absolute bomb! - and then slept in the car for most of the way home, arriving safely at my door by around 3pm.
Hangover taco stop! L-R: Liz, Todd, me, Kiri, Luke, Colin and Maiko.
All in all, our journey to Naked Man Festival was a complete success. It's pretty close to being one of the craziest things I've experienced in my time in Japan and ranks up there as one of the best weekends I've had for a long time. The company was amazing, the food was sublime, the drinking was fun and the naked men... well, there were lots of them, very naked. I'd call that a win in any language ;)
Friday, 15 February 2013
More Weird Finds at the Shops...
These pictures are from my shopping trips over the past few weeks - supermarkets, "dollar" stores, liquor shops and chemists...
Black and semi-long, eh?
Chocolate-coated Pringles-style chips at $5+ a box.
Men's coffee. Apparently.
Robot and Nutcracker Man biscuit tins.
White Pepsi? Insert lame Michael Jackson joke here...
Interesting new packaging for wine...
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